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Dr. Richard Crosby, Piano Camp II Director

Richard Crosby was born in Ashland, Ohio and raised in Largo, Florida. He holds the Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education (1979), the Master of Music degree in Piano and Wind Conducting (1981) and the Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Piano (1990) from the University of Cincinnati’s College-Conservatory of Music. His principal piano teachers at CCM were John Meretta and Richard Morris, and his principal conducting training was with John Leman and Terry Milligan.

Dr. Crosby was appointed to the faculty of Eastern Kentucky University in 1986 where he serves as Professor of Music teaching piano and music history. He is an active adjudicator. Dr. Crosby also serves as Director of the Stephen Collins Foster Piano Camps, held every summer at EKU. Initiated in 1975 into the Eta-Omicron chapter of Phi Mu Alpha Sinfonia, the fraternity for men in music, Dr. Crosby served as Collegiate Province Representative for the fraternity’s Province 3, and has served since 1988 as Governor of Province 25. He was a trustee of the Sinfonia Educational Foundation from 1988-97 and from 2003-present. He served as committeeman-at-large and National Secretary/Treasurer on the National Executive Committee from 1988-94, and served as National President from 1994-97 and 2003-09.

Dr. Crosby’s compact disc/cassette recording, “An American Portrait,” released in 1994, features works of Charles Griffes, Amy Beach, William Grant Still, David Guion, Louis Moreau Gottschalk, Lee Hoiby and George Gershwin. This disc has since been re-released on the Capstone Record label and is being re-released on the PARMA label. In the fall of 1998 he used his sabbatical to tour the country promoting American music through lectures and performances of the works on this CD.

In 2003 Dr. Crosby received his first commission from the Kentucky Music Teachers Association to write a piece to be premiered at their fall convention. That work, the Sonata for Trombone and Piano Op. 1, was premiered at the convention’s Kentucky Composers Concert with the composer accompanying trombonist Ken Haddix, to whom the work is dedicated. It has been published as part of Southern Music’s ITA Manuscript Press series. In addition to the sonata he has composed a number of art songs on poems by Poe, Dunbar, Arnold and Burns, plus “By the Waters of Memory” for solo piano and “Marudvina” for violin and piano, both published by Prairie Dawg Press. March 4, 2006 saw the world premiere of his “Appalachian Variations Op. 2, ” published by TRN Music Publisher, for symphonic band, commissioned by EKU in honor of it’s centennial observance. 2007 saw the world premiere of “A Walt Whitman Portrait” for chorus and symphonic band, which was again performed in Louisville in February of 2008 at the Kentucky Music Teachers Association In-Service Conference. This work was published by Northeastern Music Publications in 2010. In 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 Crosby was the recipient of an ASCPlus award from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers. He recently premiered his Sonata For Viola and Piano Op. 10 (commissioned by the Kentucky Music Teachers Association) and is working on a Concerto for Trumpet and Orchestra and three pieces for piano.